Kelsey Green, Reading Queen

by Claudia Mills

  How was Kelsey going to finish it in time to get another worm for today?

  “Furthermore, I’m not going to let you count this book for the reading contest, Kelsey, because you were reading it at an inappropriate time.”

  How could there be an inappropriate time for reading?

  “But—” Kelsey started to protest. “I’m already on page 174!”

  “You should have thought of that before you started reading during math time. Now look at problem twenty-one on page 186.”

  With Mrs. Molina’s eyes boring down on her, Kelsey knew Annika wouldn’t dare whisper the answer. Usually when Kelsey gave a wrong answer, Mrs. Molina just sighed and called on someone else. This time, Mrs. Molina refused to move on until Kelsey actually understood what the answer was supposed to be.

  Finally, Kelsey must have managed to say something right, or at least right enough, and math time was over.

  At lunchtime, Kelsey half wanted to give up on Cody and find a very short but age-appropriate book she could race through instead. To her surprise, Cody came over to where she was sitting with Annika and Izzy. Without a word, he held out Henry and Mudge and the Careful Cousin.

  Maybe Cody was finally catching bookworm fever, too. Or maybe he felt guilty for leaving all of his Henry and Mudge books at school. Or maybe he felt sorry for Kelsey for getting in trouble in math. Right now Kelsey didn’t care.

  She and Cody sat on a bench by the swing set and Cody haltingly read aloud to her. To Kelsey’s disappointment, he wasn’t reading any better than he had the day before. Probably one 48-page book wasn’t enough to turn him into an instant reader.

  Kelsey had a sudden thought: reading was as hard for Cody as fractions were for her.

  “You’re doing great,” she said to him, even though he wasn’t. But she had to give him credit for trying harder at reading than she was at math.

  At three o’clock, as Kelsey was shrugging on her backpack to head out the classroom door and get as far away from her teacher as possible, Mrs. Molina called her name again.

  “Kelsey! Don’t forget your book!”

  Mrs. Molina was offering Ramona the Pest to her, with a smile! As if all were forgiven!

  “I don’t want it now,” Kelsey said coldly. “If you won’t let me get a worm for it, I’m not going to finish reading it.”

  Maybe Mrs. Molina would relent. How could she let a student abandon a book as good as Ramona the Pest when the student had already read to page 174?

  But Mrs. Molina just handed her the book and said, “Oh, Kelsey.”

  She sounded just like Kelsey’s mother.

  And sure enough, in the car on the way home, when Kelsey told her mother how unfair Mrs. Molina had been, her mother said, “Oh, Kelsey,” too.

  Kelsey finally broke down and read the last 18 pages of Ramona the Pest before she went to bed. But if Mrs. Molina thought Kelsey would ever forgive her for denying her a well-earned worm for 192 whole pages, she was sadly mistaken.

  6

  Simon was now four worms ahead because of Ramona the Pest. It was getting harder for Kelsey to find short but age-appropriate books; she had read almost all of the ones in the school library.

  “Do you think Junie B. Jones would count as age-appropriate?” Kelsey asked Annika as they searched the library shelves after school on Thursday. Kelsey had asked her mother to pick them up a bit later.

  “No. Junie B. Jones is in kindergarten!”

  “So is Ramona. And Ramona is age-appropriate.” Or would have been.

  “Junie B. Jones is a lot shorter than Ramona. I mean, her books are a lot shorter. With tons of pictures.”

  “Ramona has pictures, too.”

  Kelsey knew it was a lost cause. She could ask Mrs. Molina just to be sure, but she couldn’t bear the thought of the mean little smile the teacher would give when she said no.

  Then Kelsey remembered how many pictures there had been in the biography of Benedict Arnold she had read last week. There were lots of short but age-appropriate biographies. It didn’t count against biographies that they had tons of pictures. Biographies were supposed to have tons of pictures so that you could see what everybody looked like long ago.

  Her mother must be outside waiting by now. So Kelsey quickly chose a biography of Harriet Tubman, who helped slaves escape on the Underground Railroad, and one of Emily Dickinson, the poet. She wondered if a book of poetry would count as age-appropriate. Poems had all that nice white space around them on each page. Even grownups read poetry, and nobody said they were babyish readers. Kelsey grabbed a book of Emily Dickinson poems, just in case.

  “What took you so long?” her mother asked as Kelsey and Annika climbed into the backseat of the car; Izzy was at Fitness Club, as usual.

  “I couldn’t find any good books.” By good, Kelsey meant short. “Do you think a poetry book is age-appropriate?”

  “I don’t see why not. But you’ll need to ask Mrs. Molina.”

  Kelsey decided just to fill out a poetry worm and assume it was fine unless she heard otherwise. She certainly wasn’t going to ask Mrs. Molina.

  By the time they reached Kelsey’s house, ten minutes later, she had already read half the Emily Dickinson poems. Some of them were hard to understand, but nobody said you had to understand every single word in a book in order to get a worm for it.

  Some of the poems were wonderful.

  “Don’t go inside yet,” Kelsey said to Annika. “Just listen to this poem.”

  She started reading:

  “There is no Frigate like a Book

  To take us Lands away,

  Nor any Coursers like a Page

  Of prancing Poetry.”

  “I don’t get it,” Annika interrupted. “What’s a frigate? And what are coursers?”

  Kelsey wasn’t completely sure what those things were, either. But she knew the poem was about how much Emily Dickinson loved books, and how books could take you anywhere. She loved the words “prancing Poetry.” Poetry did prance, like horses. Coursers must be horses. Emily’s words gave her a wonderful shivery feeling all over.

  “I think a frigate is a ship,” she said, for starters.

  “So why didn’t they say ship?”

  Kelsey gave up. Some people loved poetry. Some people loved math. But both kinds of people could be friends.

  * * *

  The next day, counting both the Emily Dickinson poetry book and the Emily Dickinson biography, Kelsey had two new worms. Simon had only one. So he was back to being just three worms ahead.

  Kelsey didn’t think she dared count any more poetry books toward her worm total. But how would she ever catch up to Simon? The reading contest would be over in another week!

  “I think,” Kelsey said to her friends at lunch, “we’re going to have to do some spying this weekend.”

  Izzy’s face lit up. “Bring it on!”

  Annika looked pleased, too. “Simon Ellis, your days are numbered!” she said with a cackling chuckle.

  Kelsey had a small pang at the thought of what would happen to their class worm total if Simon was caught as a cheater reader. But maybe their class was going to lose to Mr. Thurston’s anyway, despite all of Simon’s possibly bogus worms. And it would be bitter beyond bearing if a cheater’s name was on the library plaque instead of hers. It was going to be awful if his name was on the plaque instead of hers, period.

  That evening, Kelsey prepared her spy notebook. In Harriet the Spy, Harriet had a special notebook where she wrote down all her observations about everything in big capital letters. Kelsey had read Harriet the Spy before the reading contest began. It was much too long to be a reading contest book.

  Kelsey wrote:

  SIMON HAS TWENTY-FOUR WORMS. I HAVE TWENTY-ONE. I WONDER IF SIMON LOVES READING THE WAY EMILY DICKINSON AND I DO OR IF HE JUST LIKES BEING THE BEST AT EVERYTHING. HE IS AS GOOD AT MATH AS ANNIKA. BUT HE ISN’T A FAST RUNNER LIKE IZZY. I HOPE IZZY CAN RUN FAST ENOUGH TOMORROW. I LEARNED FROM HARRIET THE SPY THAT TERRIB
LE THINGS CAN HAPPEN IF SPIES GET CAUGHT.

  7

  Saturday was warm and sunny. A soft breeze stirred the blossoms on the flowering crabapple tree in Kelsey’s front yard.

  “The perfect weather for spying!” Izzy said as they all set out in the morning from Kelsey’s house.

  Annika agreed.

  Kelsey herself thought that fog and drizzly rain would have been better weather for spying, not to mention dark of night. The three of them should have planned to meet at midnight. They should have tied strings around their big toes and hung the strings out the window, so that the leader—Izzy, probably—could tug on the strings to wake the others.

  Didn’t her friends ever read?

  Annika had looked up Simon’s address in the school directory and copied it onto a scrap of paper. He lived just a few blocks away, toward the park.

  “If we get caught, we can eat the paper,” Annika said.

  Maybe her friends did read.

  “I saw a spy do that on a TV show once,” Annika added.

  As they approached Simon’s street, Kelsey asked, “What exactly are we going to do when we get there?”

  “Spy!” Izzy and Annika answered in unison.

  Kelsey felt a sudden surge of doubt. The idea that had seemed so good when it was just an idle suggestion seemed more fraught with peril when it was time actually to carry it out. “But—what if his parents are there? What if his bedroom is upstairs? Will Izzy have to climb a tree to look in the window? What if there isn’t a tree? What if Simon sees her looking in?”

  She could tell that Izzy and Annika thought these were good questions, questions they probably should have asked themselves sooner.

  “We need to make a plan,” Kelsey said.

  Luckily, she had her Harriet the Spy notebook with her, and a pencil.

  Annika and Izzy sat down next to her in the shade of another flowering crabapple tree, a block away from Simon’s street, as Kelsey started writing.

  PLAN FOR SPYING ON SIMON

  FIRST WE CASE THE JOINT. THIS MEANS WE WALK BY PRETENDING TO BE GOING SOMEWHERE ELSE.

  “What do we do after that?” Annika asked, reading over Kelsey’s shoulder.

  Kelsey picked up her pencil and continued writing.

  IF SOMEONE IS IN THE YARD, WE MAKE CONVERSATION AND GATHER INFORMATION. IF NO ONE IS IN THE YARD, WE SEE IF THERE ARE ANY WINDOWS IZZY CAN LOOK IN.

  “What if Izzy gets caught?” Izzy asked.

  Kelsey wrote,

  IZZY BETTER NOT GET CAUGHT.

  Then she closed her notebook and tucked her pencil behind her ear.

  When they reached Simon’s house, right away Kelsey saw two good things: 1) nobody was in the yard; 2) the house had only one story.

  She started to write these facts down in her notebook, but Annika stopped her, sounding almost crabby. “We don’t have time for that. They could come out any minute. Izzy needs to spy now.”

  Izzy was practically dancing with excitement as Kelsey and Annika hid behind the tall hedge separating Simon’s yard from the yard next door.

  “What if she does get caught?” Annika asked Kelsey. “Who eats the paper? You or me?”

  As if that were their biggest worry!

  “We should have worn disguises,” Kelsey said. “Masks, at least.”

  “Masks would make us look stupid.”

  “It’s better to look stupid than to be stupid,” Kelsey shot back.

  From her vantage point behind the hedge, she could see Izzy slip around the side of Simon’s house and look in the first window. Fortunately, it didn’t have any closed blinds or curtains to keep Izzy from peering in. Unfortunately, there was also nothing to keep Simon and his family from peering out.

  Now Izzy was behind the house, out of sight.

  A few minutes went by. Five? Ten?

  “She should be back by now,” Annika whispered, even though there was nobody else to hear.

  “Maybe she’s taking notes,” Kelsey whispered back.

  But Izzy hadn’t taken the Harriet the Spy notebook.

  Kelsey tried to think of another non-horrible possibility. “Maybe she’s—”

  A large hand clamped down on Kelsey’s shoulder.

  She screamed.

  Another large hand clamped down on Annika’s shoulder.

  Annika screamed, too.

  “What are you kids doing in my yard?” a deep voice bellowed.

  Kelsey thought she might faint. Did people ever faint in real life, or only in books?

  When the man let go of them, she made herself look at him. He was about as old as her grandfather, tall, bald-headed, with a beard almost as big and bushy as Mr. Boone’s.

  “Are you the kids who broke my window last week?” the man demanded. “With your baseball?”

  “No!” Kelsey said.

  “We’ve never—” Annika stammered. “We’ve never been here before.”

  “Then why are you here now? On private property?”

  With the man glaring down at them as if he were about to call the police and have them arrested for trespassing, the only thing Kelsey could think of was the truth. The police would probably torture it out of her, anyway.

  “We’re spying,” she confessed.

  Annika’s face turned another shade paler. So much for the plan of eating the evidence.

  “Spying?” The man sounded as if he had never heard of such a thing. Maybe he didn’t read, either.

  “On Simon,” Kelsey continued faintly. “Simon Ellis. He’s in our class at school. Our friend Izzy—”

  She turned her head slightly and could see Izzy racing across Simon’s lawn, too late to be warned that the real danger lay on the other side of the hedge.

  “Izzy was looking in Simon’s window to see—”

  “To see what?”

  “No one was there!” Izzy burst out as she tore around the hedge. “I couldn’t find anything!”

  She saw the man and stopped, apparently unsure whether to run or to stay with her captured friends.

  “To see what?” the man repeated. “Don’t you know that there are laws against looking in people’s windows?”

  Kelsey might as well tell him. “To see if Simon is really reading all the books he says he’s reading for the reading contest. At Franklin School. I’m a superfast reader, and I read and read and read, but no matter how many books I read, Simon reads even more. Or he says he does. So we were just checking.”

  “Checking?”

  “To see if he is really reading them or not,” Kelsey finished. “Show him the paper,” she told Annika.

  Maybe there were benefits to not eating the evidence.

  “See? We wrote down his address and everything. We were going to eat the paper if we got caught. But we didn’t have time to eat it.”

  Kelsey waited to see if the man would call the police now.

  Instead, he started laughing.

  “You kids take the cake!” He laughed again. “Here’s some free advice. No more spying! You know what they do to spies when they catch ’em? The firing squad!” But there was a twinkle in his eyes. “And don’t play baseball around here, either.”

  “We won’t,” Kelsey, Annika, and Izzy promised together.

  As they turned to run home, a car pulled into Simon’s driveway.

  Simon got out of the car. He was carrying a big stack of library books.

  Kelsey could practically see Simon’s worm folder bulging before her very eyes. Of course, anybody could check out library books. Checking out library books wasn’t the same thing as reading library books. But she had to admit that so far the spying part of the top-secret cheater-catcher plan was a failure.

  8

  Monday morning, Kelsey hurried into school with Annika to check the huge chart in the front hallway, now colored brightly with a different shade of marker for every class.

  Franklin School had read a total of 1,752 books. There were just four days left before the reading contest ended on Friday.<
br />
  “Mr. Boone is going to have to shave his beard!” Annika chortled to Kelsey.

  “We haven’t read two thousand books yet,” Kelsey pointed out.

  “We will. Do you want me to prove it to you?”

  “Prove it how?”

  “With math, duh!”

  Annika pulled out her math notebook and scribbled some numbers on a blank page.

  “We only need 248 more books. Over the last three weeks, we’ve averaged 584 books a week.”

  Kelsey still didn’t understand.

  “1,752 divided by 3 is 584,” Annika explained. “So we only need to read about half that many this week, and we’ll win. Kelsey, don’t you pay attention in math at all?”

  Well, no, Kelsey didn’t. Though these days she wasn’t reading during math, either.

  Mrs. Molina’s class, colored with forest-green marker, was only six books behind Mr. Thurston’s class, colored with midnight-blue marker, and way ahead of the next closest class.

  Mr. Boone popped out of the office to check the chart.

  “Start sharpening your razor,” Annika told him. Annika wasn’t usually as brave as Izzy, but this time she had math to back her up. Plus, you could say anything to Mr. Boone, and he’d just laugh.

  He laughed this time, too, but Kelsey thought his laugh had a hollow ring to it. He clutched his beard in a dramatic gesture, to make the girls giggle. But Kelsey didn’t think he was pretending.

  She couldn’t imagine Mr. Boone without his beard. It would be like imagining Izzy without running, or Annika without math, or Kelsey without reading. Instead of looking like a pirate, he’d look like … like a round, shiny moon. Mr. Boone would be Mr. Moon.

  * * *

  Kelsey decided to find out once and for all if she could count Junie B. Jones books toward her worm total. The class was gathering for read-aloud time and starting a new book: When You Reach Me.

  “Why don’t you ask Mrs. Molina if we can count Junie B. Jones books?” Kelsey asked Izzy, since Annika had already said that she thought the answer would clearly be no.

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “She’ll say no if I ask, but she might say yes if you do it. Izzy, if I can count Junies, I can beat Simon. I can read a Junie B. Jones book in twenty minutes.”